Construction Site Deaths Rise With Building Boom

For most of us, South Florida's building boom means more traffic, another strip shopping center, maybe some dust.

For construction workers, it means ... pain.

With agonizing regularity, construction workers are scraped, maimed and killed on the job.

They have fallen from scaffoldings, been crushed by collapsing walls and mangled by construction equipment.

They have been electrocuted, burned, drowned, impaled or struck by falling objects.

They have been pinned under trucks, dragged by front-end loaders, trapped in sewer holes, buried in rubble and burned by hot tar.

In 1993 and 1994, 64 workers in Broward, Palm Beach and Dade counties died in construction-related accidents, according to the Florida Department of Labor and Employment Security. At least eight more have died this year in South Florida.

filling with toxic gases on Aug. 16 in Delray Beach. One died, the other broke his collarbone trying to save his friend's life.

Dozens of others have been seriously injured. Construction accidents are so common that workers frequently sit around and brag about who has the ugliest scars, said Mike Knapik of Oakland Park, a construction worker who runs his own company.

"I've almost cut my fingers off with a table saw several times. I have lots of scars from table saws and skill saws and such," he said. "The risk is always there. All it takes is one accident to mess you up for life."

According to the National Safety Council, construction workers are killed at a higher rate than any other workers, including those in transportation, agriculture, mining and manufacturing.

Florida leads the nation in construction-related fatalities, with an average of about 90 per year.

That, construction experts say, is because the Sunshine State has year-round construction, and South Florida is one of the fastest-growing areas in the nation.

"We're just more busy than a lot of other places," said James Chapman, who runs a small Delray Beach construction firm.

Between 1990 and April of this year, the combined growth of Broward and Palm Beach counties was an estimated 149,300 people - a newcomer population almost the same as the entire population of Fort Lauderdale.

That growth ranks Broward first in the state, and Palm Beach second, in the numbers of people choosing to call those counties home. As they arrive, builders in the two counties race to keep up with housing demand. They pulled more than 27,000 new housing permits in 1994 alone.

Because of the nature of construction - working in high places, with heavy equipment, with sharp objects and protrusions all around - accidents often are gruesome. Some cases in point since 1990:

-- Three workers tumbled 10 stories to their deaths in March because their scaffolding collapsed at a Miami construction site.

-- A worker was killed in January when a dump truck backed over him at a school construction site in suburban West Palm Beach.

-- A powerful wind gust tore through a Coral Springs construction site last November, toppling a 19-foot wall and burying a worker under a pile of concrete blocks.

-- A Fort Lauderdale roofer carrying a bucket of hot tar fell off a ladder and spilled the tar on himself, causing severe burns on his face, legs, chest and arms in March 1993.

-- A laborer working in a ditch was crushed to death in August 1992 when a boulder weighing more than a ton rolled on top of him at a Boca Raton site.

-- A construction worker was killed in April 1991 when a 21-foot piece of steel pipe fell 100 feet from a crane and struck him on the head at a Florida Power & Light Co. site west of Dania.

-- A worker was critically injured when a front-end loader lurched into gear and ran over him, dragging him at least 20 yards at a site near West Palm Beach in July 1990.

-- A worker accidentally drove a mini-bulldozer off an Interstate 95 bridge in Pompano Beach, fell 30 feet and had the 6,000-pound vehicle land on top of him in March 1990. He escaped with a broken arm.

State and federal agencies learn of construction accidents only when police and fire personnel respond and file reports, or when worker compensation claims are filed. Some construction accidents may go unreported because illegal immigrants in the building industry work force do not want authorities to learn of their status.

In 1994, 7,814 compensation claims were filed statewide by construction workers, according to the Florida Department of Labor and Employment Security. The number was down from 10,079 claims in 1993, when South Florida was still in a rebuilding frenzy from Hurricane Andrew.

One result of those claims is that employers collectively have to pay out millions of dollars. Among them is Dave Hollander, vice president and co-owner of Silver Builders Inc., the master developer of the giant SilverLakes development in southwest Broward County.

Hollander said he recently had to pay a $78,000 claim to a plumber who got a thumb smashed when someone placed a water tank on his hand.